The Alto Knights (dir. Barry Levinson)

by Jack Martin | Mar 22, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 123 mins

UK Distributor: Warner Bros

UK Release Date: 21 March 2025

WHO’S IN THE ALTO KNIGHTS?

Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli, Michael Adler, Ed Amatrudo, Joe Bacino, James Ciccone, Anthony J. Gallo, Wallace Langham, Belmont Cameli, Louis Mustillo, Frank Piccirillo, Matt Servitto, Robert Uricola

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Barry Levinson (director, producer), Nicholas Pileggi (writer), Jason Sosnoff, Charles Winkler, David Winkler and Irvin Winkler (producers), David Fleming (composer), Dante Spinotti (cinematographer), Douglas Crise (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

In 50s New York, two competing mobsters (both De Niro) wage war against each other…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE ALTO KNIGHTS?

A movie like The Alto Knights shouldn’t be this hard to screw up. And yet, even with its pedigree of talent that includes big names like Robert De Niro, director Barry Levinson and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi (who wrote both Goodfellas and Casino), it’s downright shocking how bad the movie turned out to be.

This is a film that had apparently been in development as early as the 1970s – under the slightly better title Wise Guys – and it shows, for not only is it a collection of every single gangster that has become commonplace ever since that decade, but from the way that it is structured and presented, it almost feels like an uncovered damaged fossil from an era that cared not for self-awareness or even restraint. It’d all be rather fascinating if it also wasn’t incredibly, almost unbearably dull.

The movie attempts to tell the story of two competing crime bosses in 50s New York, both inexplicably played by De Niro. On one end, there’s Frank Costello, a former bootlegger turned head of a powerful Italian-American mob family who’s in a comfortable position of power with numerous cops and politicians on his payroll. On the other end is Vito Genovese, a much looser cannon who, after returning from exile in Italy, struggles to get back on top of the gangster hierarchy. Both were apparently the best of friends when they were younger, but the movie barely shows any of that, instead focusing on their later years when they become bitter rivals, something that kicks into gear after Genovese orders a failed assassination attempt on Costello.

The movie fails because for much of it, there’s next to no context for what’s going on. Pileggi’s script completely glosses over that crucial period of these mobsters’ friendship which, aside from adding a desperately needed emotional connection to the characters’ journeys, would also have filled in a lot of holes regarding their feud in the movie’s present. Even then, the two of them only ever share no more than three scenes together, which for a film structured around their one-upmanship over one another is an alarmingly low amount of screen time together. Without any proper clarification – or at the very least, any that isn’t awkwardly dumped onto us via various interludes of De Niro’s Costello giving rambling exposition directly to the audience – their rivalry comes off as two old men just being petty with each other, causing the viewer to quickly lose interest as it becomes apparent that we’re not getting any further information beyond what the movie is giving them.

It oddly seems as though The Alto Knights is expecting its audience to already know who these real-life figures are, as though there were on the same level of notoriety as Al Capone (except they’re not), so anyone going in wanting to know more about either Frank Costello or Vito Genovese and their apparently famous feud will come away knowing about much as they did going in. This is a failure on the part of not just Pileggi, who does himself no favours by filling his script with enough stock mobster speak to make Martin Scorsese roll his eyes, but also director Levinson, who hasn’t the faintest idea how to liven an already uneventful narrative. His idea of injecting life into the film is to simply emulate the overall style of Goodfellas, complete with flashy editing (in parts, almost way too flashy), sudden freeze-frames, swooning camera movements, and constant narration that attempts to add a touch of humour to the grim imagery. Needless to say, Scorsese did it all better and with much more of a natural flow, while Levinson is far too interested in making his movie feel like a direct copy of a much better movie that he neglects to make his own film stand on its own, starting with the seemingly basic step of letting the audience know who these people are and why they should care.

Even the double-casting of Robert De Niro ends up being its own mini-distraction, for it adds nothing to the overall film other than an eye-catching marketing gimmick (two Bobbies for the price of one!). As Costello, De Niro is essentially in familiar territory as a character he could probably play in his sleep at this point, but as Genovese, he’s under a bit more make-up and exaggerating his performance a lot more, to a point where he all too eerily looks and acts exactly like Joe Pesci (one wonders if De Niro’s Goodfellas co-star was actually cast in this role at first, but then dropped out just before filming and, rather than spend more money on a replacement, they just put De Niro in the makeup chair). It’s not like he does a bad job as either, but aside from the fact that there’s really no need for these two people to be played by the same actor – they aren’t twins or distant relatives, so this isn’t a Legend or even Jack and Jill situation – you only ever see De Niro putting on not one but two performances, like it’s an off-Broadway one-man play.

It is a movie that says nothing and accomplishes less, wasting the viewer’s time with uneventful scenes where characters we don’t know nor care about do little to command your attention. The level of talent involved only makes it harder to stomach, as none of them could elevate material that is so lacking in originality or individual spark that it almost feels like its own direct insult.

Do yourself a favour and rewatch Goodfellas over this tired, hackneyed wannabe.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Alto Knights is a dreadful gangster drama that offers nothing beyond a plethora of stock mobster tropes in a lifeless script under direction that merely emulates Goodfellas, with even the dual casting of Robert De Niro adding nothing to a deathly dull ride that nobody should experience.